


Writing (And Other Things That Are Hard)

by trinityofone



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Meta, The Winchester Gospels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-11
Updated: 2009-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 18:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trinityofone/pseuds/trinityofone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you get right down to it, Becky and Chuck are both writers. Add imminent death to the equation and you’ve got…whatever this is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Writing (And Other Things That Are Hard)

Sam Winchester is huge.

Not just physically, although oh, _my god_ , he’s even taller in real life than she pictured, and his chest is like _granite_. (Granite—has she used that?) But, like, he is _epic_ —everything about him: his past, his destiny, how hard he fights to do what’s right, to stop the darkness that’s inside of him from taking over. To find his place in the world again, after losing Jessica, losing his chance at a normal life, losing Dean. Becky just wants to give him that. In her stories, she gives him happiness.

And that makes _her_ happy. Because, you know, her life is _not_ epic—Becky Rosen is not huge. Becky Rosen is pretty small. She has her job and a few RL friends and a bunch more online friends, and that’s nice, that’s great, but that’s _all_. So to be able to touch something larger than herself (metaphorically—and now literally, oh my god!)—that’s amazing. It gives her something nice to think about when the alarm wakes her up in the morning, when she’s stuck in traffic on the way home from work, before she drifts off to sleep at night.

Sam. Sam. _Sam_.

Up until recently, she’d spent significantly less time thinking about Carver Edlund. Sure, she wrote him some fan letters, but that was mostly to thank him for giving her _Sam_ , for bringing Sam into existence. In her mind, Carver’s always been, like, insanely awesome for coming up with such a fantastic character, but he, despite being an actual person whom she could write to and hopefully repay a little via marzipan, has also always been less real to her than Sam, and even Dean. Sam, and his brother, always seemed realer than real: a glimpse of what life was really like if you managed to tear back the curtain of work-chores-errands-LJ-a night out-a warm bed. Rinse, _repeat_.

And then it turns out that in her heart of hearts, she was right: it’s all real. _Sam_ is real.

Which means the world is bigger and more incredible than she could have ever imagined. And not only that, it means she gets to help Sam, her Sam, save the world. She could not squee loudly enough to convey her joy if she tried.

The euphoria lasts for quite some time. She got to meet _Sam_! Carver chose _her_ and she got to meet _Sam_ and _help_ him, and maybe if she keeps helping, together they can defeat Lucifer and maybe Sam will get to know her and start to appreciate _her_ and even fall in love with her? And, okay, that’s ridiculous, she knows it is; and if she hadn’t promised Carver she wouldn’t tell anybody about this and could post about it, she knows it’s entitled attitudes like that that cause so much wank. But Sam’s _real_ , and she’s _really helping him_ , and the idea of him loving her (or just sleeping with her?) is no longer married-to-Snape-on-the-astral-plane ridiculous. That’s all she’s saying.

Unfortunately, though she’d known in her heart that Sam was real—that for life to be worth living, people like him _had_ to be—it takes longer for it to hit home that the fact that Sam exists means all the nasty things he hunts do, too. Lucifer isn’t some abstract concept, some consistently offstage presence that’ll throw enough roadblocks in their way to guide Dean (or, um, her) conveniently into Sam’s strong, muscular arms. He’s real, and he’s really scary, and Becky, as Carver’s messenger girl, is just the type of not-quite-important-enough character who’ll get killed to show that the situation is serious. Which, okay, she can think of worse ways to go out, and maybe it’d be all right if she dies so Sam could live, if her life gets to have meaning that way—if he could cradle her broken body in his arms like he did Dean’s, and cry manly tears over her sacrifice. As a hypothetical that ends in her getting written out, it doesn’t sound _so_ bad.

Of course it’s very different as a _hypothetical_ than it is in practice, than it feels to be trapped in a house with Carver—a house that’s covered in wards so that the archangels can’t even come in and rescue them (him), that’s surrounded by demons who began shouting and are now whispering all the pretty pretty things they are going to do with Becky and Carver’s entrails, with their lifeblood.

“Sorry I got you into this mess,” Carver says. He sits on the couch, curled in on himself; unlike Sam, he’s smaller in person than she pictured.

“Even if I die, it’ll have been worth it,” Becky says, and she still means it. She thinks.

“Don’t say that,” Carver practically moans. He fists his hair, leaving it sticking up in bunches. “I really don’t want to hear you say that.”

He might be a genius, but Becky kind of doesn’t get Carver Edlund sometimes. “Why not?”

“God, where to start? Because it’s my fault you’re here? Because it’s my fault you were wasting your life writing gay incestuous porn on the internet and it’s my fault you’re now going to get ripped apart by demons? I’m as bad as those manipulative angelic bastards—I said jump, and you jumped.” His face drops into his hands. “Right off a cliff,” he adds, muffled.

Becky stares at him, holding herself very still. “I wasn’t wasting my life,” she says. “I was creating stories.”

“We’re going to suck the marrow from your bones,” one of the demons calls.

“Yeah, we get it!” Carver shouts. He looks back at Becky, and she’s not sure if he’s rolling his eyes at her or at the demon/imminent agent of their demise. “But you weren’t really. You were using someone else’s characters.”

Becky feels suddenly as angry as she does when the Dean Girls get all superior and start fights. “So were you! You were writing about _real people_.” She stabs a finger at him. “You write RPF!”

Carver stares at her. He looks confused, and tired. “What’s RPF?”

She folds her arms across her chest and looks away. “Never mind. I’m not doing this for you, anyway. I’m doing it for Sam.”

“Sam—”

“Yes, Sam!” she snaps, cutting off whatever bit of bashing he’s surely about to come out with. “He’s real, and he’s a better person than you’ll ever be!”

As she watches, Carver collapses in on himself, shrinking down to the smallest she’s ever seen him. “I know.”

Just like that, Becky loses energy for her pro-Sam tirade. “You know?”

“Of course I know!” Carver says. “I mean, look around you—who am I? I’m nothing. I’m…I’m not even really a writer, just a…heavenly transcriber.” He sighs with his whole body. “At least you came up with your stories on your own.”

Becky bites her lip. “You are so a writer,” she says finally. “The way I feel about Sam…that all happened long before I _met_ him. And it’s because of who he is, sure—because he’s _amazing_ —but it’s also because of the way you described him. I know him like I do because of you.”

He looks up at her from between his hands, between the tattered sleeves of his bathrobe.

“It’s like…” She shifts on the couch, scooting closer. “Lots of people submit stories to my site, and they’re all writing about Sam and Dean, and everything they write has the potential to seem real.”

Carver snorts. “I think you have a different view of what constitutes reality than—”

“Shut up, I’m constructing a metaphor.” She just snapped at Carver Edlund. Whatever, he deserved it. “Anyway, everything anybody writes has a chance of making you see the characters, the people, in a whole new way. It can transform them and their relationships and the world and _you_ into something new and amazing. You know?”

“No?”

“It can!” Becky insists. “But not all of it does. Only the really good stuff. The _best_ stuff. And your writing did that for me, Carver. You made me believe in Sam and Dean so much that I wanted to try to make them real, too.”

“Oh,” Carver says. Then he says, “My name’s not really Carver, you know.”

She does know. But maybe it was easier—more fun and less scary—to pretend she was helping the godlike Carver Edlund than to acknowledge that who she’s really going to die with is _this_ guy, who’s no stronger or braver or worthy of worship than she is.

“You can call me Chuck,” he says.

“Okay, Chuck. You can call me samlicker81.”

He stares at her, horrified.

“That was a _joke_ ,” she says.

He flushes a little beneath his beard, and laughs weakly. “Sorry,” he says, “My sense of humor tends to go down the toilet when I know I’m about to die.”

Becky looks around at the messy room, listens to the demons crack away at the last of their protections. “Are we really going to die?” she asks in a small voice. She’d known she’s not an important character, not really, but this still seems like such a sad, sorry way to go out. She used to try to do even her minor OCs more justice.

Chuck swallows. “I’m not much use against an army of demons,” he admits. “I’m not _Sam_ ,” he adds, a bit ruefully.

“Not everyone can be as awesome as Sam,” Becky says, which is the absolute truth. “If they were, it would be boring. You need to have characters like Dean, and like Bobby—and even like Ruby and Bela and Gordon and stuff.” She tries for a smile. “And like you.”

Chuck chuckles, bitterly. “Oh yeah? And who am I?”

“You’re the plucky comic relief!” Becky says, encouragingly. Though even as she says it, she’s not sure where that leaves _her_.

 _Face it_ , she thinks. _You’re a redshirt. Redshirt redshirt redshirt. Crap._

She sniffs, takes a deep breath. Well, at least she’s going to be a _brave_ redshirt. And then, when Sam finds what little will probably remain of her body, maybe he’ll say, _Becky was so brave_ …

If he actually does remember her name.

Beside her, Chuck is still frowning, mirroring her own expression’s sudden turn toward the doom ‘n’ gloom. “It’s not fair,” he grouses. “The plucky comic relief never gets the girl.”

She rolls her eyes. “ _I’m_ a girl,” she says, because come on—it’s like he hasn’t even noticed that she’s _here_. Not really.

Then his gaze slides over, and he looks at her.

“So, you’re kind of obsessed with sex,” he says.

And she rolls her eyes again, because _seriously_ , nonfen never understand this, that that’s not it at _all_ — But then she remembers that they’re going to die, and he’s _Carver Edlund_ , and really, even though he’s not Sam, he’s actually kind of scruffy and cute.

She scooches over, leans close. “I’ve been told that I have a really, _really_ vivid imagination.”

This is, undeniably, true.

However, not even in Becky’s wildest imaginings could she have pictured Dean and Castiel and _Sam_ barging in to rescue them while she and Chuck are still tangled together, caressing each other’s clavicles.

“Oh!” She blushes deeply, but surprises herself with how well she keeps her cool—better than she did the first time she met him, really, and that time she was fully clothed. “Hi, Sam!”

“Whoa,” is all Sam says, which is a little disappointing. Perhaps Chuck has spoiled her when it comes to good dialogue.

Nevertheless, “You came!” she says happily. Not dying is definitely worth squeeing over.

“What took you so long?” Chuck asks at almost the same time.

“We wanted to make sure that you two came first,” Dean says with a smirk, and honestly, Becky doesn’t understand what those girls see in him.

“Dean,” Castiel says in that cool rumbly voice of his, “this woman is your apostle; you should show her more respect.”

“Apostle?” says Dean, incredulous.

“If I’m anyone’s apostle I’m Sam’s!” Becky says vehemently. She shoots Dean a disappointed glare and shakes her head. “Who’d want to be _his_ apostle?”

Castiel becomes suddenly fascinated with a loose string on his coat sleeve. Becky stares at him. To her shock, her slash alarms are ringing like crazy.

She turns to Chuck, who’s having some difficulty locating his boxers. She guides his hand to where they’re sticking out from between the couch cushions and grins at him.

“Can I borrow your laptop?”

**Author's Note:**

> One line stolen directly from _Galaxy Quest_ —but only because the show did it first.


End file.
